1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to devices and methods for providing ambient lighting in hospital operating room environments.
2. Background of the Invention
A typical hospital patient's experience in an operating room is a frightening experience, often worsened by the garish and harshly lighted environment. In addition to disquieting the hospital patient, sedation rates have been shown to be impacted by the nature of the room environment. As a result, an invention that improves the mood and sense of calm of a patient would be of benefit. While hospitals have begun to utilize some forms of ambient lighting in various hospital environments such as in diagnostic rooms or in routine procedure rooms such as catheterization labs, there is no adequate system for providing ambient lighting to a hospital surgical room environment. These lighting systems providing minimal lighting, i.e. an ambient light source in one small position on a wall or ceiling, and therefore do not create an immersive lighting environment. Also, the ambient lighting is provided by focusing a colored light source onto the front of a wall, typically resulting in a washed-out light. The presence of these lights in the operating room environment is conceivably a safety hazard, as they are difficult to clean (if they are cleaned at all) and provide additional surface area exposed to biohazards (thereby providing a medium for their growth). As such, a successful ambient lighting system would have to be adapted for the particular requirements of an operating room environment, namely, sterility requirements and fire, water, and electrical safety requirements.
It is an object of this invention to provide a surgical operating environment capable of supplying a diffuse ambient light, its intensity, color, and on/off state controlled wirelessly by a surgeon or other person.
It is an object of this invention to provide an immersive lighting experience.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method of reducing anxiety in hospital patients and improving the overall sense of calm of patients and staff in hospital surgical environments by ambient lighting.
It is a yet further object of this invention to provide an apparatus and method of reducing anxiety in hospital surgical environments by ambient lighting in which the apparatus is easily sterilized and meets hospital building codes.
One or more of the above objects is met in whole or in part by this invention, and further objects may be realized by consideration of the description and claims below.